You
by ReedsofSilver
Summary: Waiting for a bus to take him home, Finland recalls the past he shared with Sweden, leading him to search for his own identity. Angsty SuFIn. Finland's POV.


**_This is a story I have had on my documents for while. I have mulled over it, abandoned it, and mulled over it again. I am still unsure if I am satisfied with it, but I would like another's opinion, if anyone would be so kind. I wrote this shortly after a visit to Finland and it has quite a lot of historical references in it. References to the crusades which slowly gave Sweden power over Finland, the Kalmar Union (the union between the Scandinavia), WW2. The story is told in the point of view of Finland. _**

I am sitting near you, trying not to say words that would hurt you, instead letting them saw through my own heart. Even though you are strong, I cannot let you hold this, because I know it would be too much for you to bear. When I look in the mirror I see you the parts of you that I cannot erase. How sad and sullen you look there. What have I done to make those marks? No one else seems to affect you like I do, but what have you done to me? I cannot remember before I knew you. I cannot remember if I felt anything at all before that. I must have. How can a child grow up without feeling? But you have made me forget it all, melt against you, become part of you. It was like hitting a brick wall, over and over again, getting through to your soul. Before that there was just the pain, sharp and physical.

Why do you sit there? Just sit there, and say nothing, head in your hands thinking. What are you thinking? No, no, I do not really want to know. I shan't ask you. Getting further involved will…I should leave now. I lick the blood off my lips. I had not realized that I have been biting them. Do you notice? I think not. You are still staring at the grass across the street. It's brown. I do not understand you. We only have these last few minutes before we part, and you will not even look at me, not talk to me. You offer me nothing, not even a smile; at least you give no excuse for me to stay here by your side.

I have been here too long; the wind is cold as it presses against my chest, gluing me to the metal bench. My eyes scan the road for the bus that will take me away.

"Sve," my voice cries, just above the wind.

You say nothing, probably unable to hear me. You should get your ears checked. I have tried to tell you that. Half the things I say slip by you, or perhaps you do hear. You just can't listen.

"Sve," I say again, my voice rises, demanding an answer.

You say nothing.

"I am going soon," I continue. It is stupid thing to say, obvious, remote.

"What?" you murmur as if awoken from a dream.

"I shall have to go soon," I repeat, taking your head in my hands turning you towards me. Your skin is cold against my fingers, so cold. Sve, you are freezing.

"Why must you go?" you ask. Your eyes stare pitifully at me, welling with unshed tears behind the panes of your glasses.

"I have to go home," I tell you.

"Here home," you say.

I let my hands fall from your cheeks.

"No, Sve," I shake my head, "no."

I get up and pace back and forth in front of the bus stop. Eyes shifting behind glass, you watch. Sometimes you seem to be encaged. Locked away from us all in some tower, I cannot reach.

"One more night," you suggest. It's not a question, not a demand.

"You know it would never be like that. You do not know the meaning of one. You took and take. I have nothing more to give."

"Are you angry with me?"

"I am too tired to be angry."

I want to be away, far away. Your gaze is too much to bear, so hard.

"You tired of me?" your voice is not allowed to waver.

"I am exhausted," I say flatly, desiring to throw all personal accents from the conversation. I sit back down beside you but cross my arms warding you off. I know you want to be close to me. You wish us to be again merged under a flag of blue and yellow, but I cannot do that. I cannot turn back the time, and if I could, I would not. Bearing the pain over would kill me. Even in memory it burns.

Those hands that grasped me as child and dragged me from my home, sit stiffly on your lap. You said we would be brothers. I wailed at night in your wooden cavern of silence, but you said I would learn to love you. Then came the others. Your brothers, who eyed me with suspicion and laughed at my strange language, my savageness. How cruel they seemed to you when they said I would never be a true Scandinavian, but I believed them. For, how could I, a small peasant country compare with the majesty of Denmark or the chilling beauty of Norway?

But no words could move you. You draped me in your clothes. You taught me Swedish. Love, you said would be strong enough to change me. I knew little of love of then, but you were strong and unrelenting, and in the end I was forced to yield. I fell open before you, and you ravished my soul, destroyed my past. You said this would make out bond stronger, but I knew only the emptiness.

"Then you should not travel."

Back to the present, I sit on a cold bench beside you. Your voice is touched with the worry that highlights your face.

"I'll be fine," I say, forcing a smile and looking down the road for the bus. Stockholm is ugly today, even with its colorful buildings; it feels grey like the sky overhead. A thin drizzle escapes from the clouds. Even the women's faces look blurred and plain.

"Hmmm," you reply disapprovingly, wrapping an arm tightly around my neck. You squeeze, and my bone attempts to succumb, my breath shallows. I am not used to denying you.

"Ah, Sve, you probably don't know this," I say, "but that actually hurts."

For some reason, I am laughing, a faint tattered laugh.

"Ah, I sorry."

Your arm drop backs to your side, and your hands clasp.

"Joo, it's okay, just be more careful the next time."

"If only t'at held through w'th all things in life," you say.

I am startled by this and look up to meet your cold blue eyes. Is it possible that you can read my thoughts? I can see myself in your eyes, but I cannot hold your gaze for long. Blushing, my head dips down, and my eyes fix on the cross you gave me centuries ago. When you threw me in the water and said you saved me, laughing like an idiot.

"I love you, Timo."

"That's nice," I grumble. And it is. I am sort of glad you still care about me. I am not sure why. Of course, this is not the answer you were looking for, but it's the truth, all right? I should offer you something more, but I am still trying to understand what you mean by love.

When you first brought me home, you said we would be brothers. I followed you in my childish way, and you taught me war. How eager and quickly I learned, and how proud you looked when you presented me to Denmark as your guard.

Then came the Kalmar Union. Things changed rapidly then. I can see Denmark now, his laughing eyes as he pushed us around. Your eyes glazed over with suppressed anger; your lips fixed in a line. Before the Union, you used to smile, used to laugh, especially when you were with Norway. I was angry that you spent so much time with him. I felt as if I would always place second, as I did not bear the blood that made you brothers. I could not understand why I cared, but I needed you.

I grew during those years, shooting up like a young tree, becoming strong as Norway weakened. He was spent through illness, and his power was taken from him.

When it came to actually breaking away, it was I who stood by you and took the blows like the man I was becoming. You called that true love.

"Finland? Finland? Suomi?"

The words hang in my head. Are they from past or present? I lift my eyes. You are standing there shaking my shoulders and wearing that long ridiculous blue coat, that stupid hat. It could be any day in the vast centuries, but Volvos speed down the street behind you.

"You 'kay? Look dazed."

"Uh, yes, I was thinking," I say but stop. Maybe reminding you of Kalmar Union is not the best thing.

"'Bout what?"

"The past."

For a moment, you look thoughtful.

"That rather vague," you say.

I nod and take your hand.

"You look'd sad."

"I was sad."

"Why?"

I smile.

"I don't know. It just makes me feel sad."

"Ya thinkin' of Russia?"

Russia, the man who I warred against for years, who burnt me, cut me, and taught me freedom. Who in tones of pity told me I was not East Sweden, I was Finland. Who played with me, allowing me independence until I looked too much like a threat.

"No, not him," I mumble. The bus is late, or it passed me by when I was dreaming.

"The bus is taking a long time," I say scrutinizing you closely.

You nod. I know now that bus will not be coming. I can read it in your face. Over the years, I have mapped out your features. I had to, so I could have idea of what you were thinking, you so seldom spoke to me. You lied to me about the bus schedule, didn't you?

"Come home with me," you say. Taking my hand, you lift me to my feet.

"No, Sve. It's not my home anywhere."

"Just for tonight," you say.

You walk. I follow. So much like before that I want to scream. But I follow you. Why? What do I fear? The loneliness, the emptiness, the liquor, the dark. Do I fear myself? What I am without you? I remember after you left me, I nearly went mad. Men dying, soldier after soldier. My armies became battered bodies, pools of blood under Russian boots. Because I would not give you up. You left me. You would not fight for me. You were too afraid, too tired. Why couldn't I just give up, like you did?

After Russia set me free, I tried to talk to you. I wanted to ask you if we were over, but you didn't listen, you didn't look at me. And all too soon, Russia wanted me back, wanted me to come home with him again. I would not let him. I pitted a devil against a devil. I chose Hitler over Stalin. I won and I lost. I let others be trampled for my freedom. They would have been trampled anyway. If I had not fought I would have gone down like the others, like the Baltics I would have been enslaved. Can you understand that? But, no, you were not there, not really. You turned your head the other way. You could never see me ugly.

"Finland?"

I shake my head free of phantoms, smile up at you.

"Yes, Sve."

"Ya thinkin' again?"

"Yes."

"What ya thinkin' of?"

"You, Sve, I am thinking about you."

_**Please tell me what you think. How can I improve it, or is it fine the way it stands? I need suggestions. Thank you.**_


End file.
